To Begin Again

Photo by Anastasia Nelen on Unsplash

For my 50th birthday, I wished to prioritize writing in the second half of my life. After about one year of preparing for this wish, I parted with all I had in Boston.

I loved my apartment. Even though it was small and single, it had everything I needed: cozy comfort, being surrounded by loving neighbors and friends, cool cafes and restaurants, and nearby T stops to downtown and other squares. Another big step was quitting my stable and solid job. My life was my style. By the standard of everyday living, I had everything.

But there was always this itch for writing in me. It started small but persistently got louder and louder as I aged. If I don’t write now, I might never do it.

My strategy is to downsize and lower my living costs so I won’t need a full-time job for the next few years. Hence, I'm moving from Boston to Taiwan. It’s easy for me to pick up and go since I only have one stomach to feed (no kids, pets, or a husband!), and my parents are healthy and independent (knock on wood!).

In the last few months, my friends graciously adopted my stuff, and my parents gave me the final push to empty my apartment. It wasn’t hard to give up everything when I had something else in mind. Like that, I began a new way of living with a new target.

I’ve been told I am brave: moving across the ocean without a job and facing all that unstructured time. What are you going to do? What about your friends? Are you going to be safe?

My courage is driven by my life goal and rooted in my family and friends.

I freed up my time to live a writer’s life: to read, write, exercise, and learn new languages. I’ll set up daily writing goals and sign up for classes, holding myself accountable in many ways. I worry about not having enough time to do everything I want and not that I’ll be bored.

We live in a digital world, and I intend to keep in touch with my friends and make new ones. Gone were the days when making international calls was one dollar a minute. Social media, when used wisely, can also help with connections. True friends will not disappear from me because of distance.

I have no control over the tension in Taiwan, and I cannot live my life around it. The only thing I can do is be cautious and prepare a backup plan to handle emergencies.

There were endless discussions, questions, and validations about my wish and plan. There was support and encouragement to dream big even at the half-century age. There were reminders that nothing is forever, and if I don’t like it, I can always come home to America.

This may look like retirement, but I hope to start a new “career” as a writer with the same rigor and focus as working for someone else. I read once that a writer (she) was speaking to a brain surgeon (he). He said to her that he was thinking about retiring and picking up writing for fun. She was offended. Writing is a proper profession, she thought. Just imagine if she had made the same statement: I’m going to retire from writing and pick up brain surgery for fun. All that is to say, I must put in effort as part of my creative pursuit instead of treating it as just a (serious) hobby now.

This is week one of being a free person. Every day, I wake up without an alarm, have an iced latte and croissant at a nearby coffee shop, spend time unwinding my mind, and create my writing plan.

The freedom of having every minute of my time to myself is incredible and precious. I know I’m blessed and privileged. I hope to treasure every minute.